Satire: The Culture Vulture

Scavenging for that Culture Cred

By Starling Root
QuailBellMagazine.com

You must be a culture vulture if...

• you take pride in paying full price for opera and ballet tickets.

• you read events listings with a discerning eye and your nose in the air.

• you wouldn't touch a light beer with the longest martini stirrer known to mankind.

• you have more museum membership cards than debit, credit, and gym cards combined.

• you watch “films,” not “movies,” and not the kind you can watch in mainstream theaters, either.

• your local librarian knows you on a first name basis—whether you owe late fees or not.

• you go to art galleries, read artist statements from top to bottom, and even buy art. (But, yeah, you drink the free wine like the rest us, too.)

• you watch several plays a season, and not just for the gay dating scene.

• you pronounce foreign words damn close to the real thing and know, really and truly, where the accent marks go.

• you know people call you a pretentious prick and actually think it's a compliment.

What's the difference between a culture vulture and a hipster? Nothing, except a culture vulture is twenty years older and not trying to play poor.